Friday, August 30, 2013

Some readers may remember indignant calls earlier this year for a commemoration of the Royal Proclamation of 1763 (see here, here and here). While the Canadian government remains disappointingly inactive on this front, at least one event is planned. The Land Claims Agreements Coalition, which regroups the modern treaty organizations in this country, will be holding a one-day symposium entitled "Creating Canada: From the Royal Proclamation to Modern Treaties" on October 7th at the Canadian Museum of Civilization. The draft program is very compelling, and includes historians (Colin Calloway and Jim Miller), legal scholars (Brian Slattery, to name but one), and politicians (Matthew Coon Come and Bernard Valcourt, Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, etc.).

The announcement for the symposium notes that an original copy of the Proclamation will be on display onsite. Presumably the Canadian Museum of Civilization will have it on display for some time, more than one day. So why doesn't the museum advertise this more widely? You'd think they'd put a bit of weight behind this foundational document, and try to whip up some well-deserved interest among the public.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

I came across this neat online review and glimpse of the inside of a new book, Mauvais Garçon: Portaits de tatoués which reproduces and analyses photographs taken by the French authorities of the tattooed bodies of some rough fellows who passed through the Bataillons d'Afrique during the 1890s-1930s. The photos are quite striking, and actually not without reminding me of tattooing in New France.
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In North America, Europeans encountered the practice among indigenous peoples. The French referred to it as "piquage", i.e. pricking (the modern word "tatouage", like the English one, is Tahitian in origin and only entered the language as a result of the Pacific explorations of the 1770s). The subject of tattooing in New France has been rather well researched at this point. Over a decade ago a certain Carolyn Christina Cross wrote an M.A. thesis on "Body Marking Within New France" (available online here); Stephanie Chaffray touched on the subject in her Ph.D. dissertation (also available online); more recently, Arnaud Balvay did too in L'Épée et la Plume (much of which is available via Googlebooks).There is some juicy material on the subject in the historical records, but my favourite is what Captain Pécaudy de Contrecoeur wrote to his eldest son, who had just joined the Troupes de la Marine and was about to depart on his first campaign: "Take good care not to commit the foolishness of having yourself tattooed: I prohibit it."Mothers and fathers, don't let your children grow up to be French colonial soldiers.P.-F.-X.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Exciting news: Montreal's McCord and Stewart Museums are amalgamating! It was announced two days ago (see Global News's coverage here). In the short term both museums will apparently continue to exist under their old names and offer their own programming, but their administration and rich collections will be integrated. The McCord holds some 1 440 000 artefacts and the Stewart another 27 000, including some real treasures of New France (and some dubious: I have misgivings about Membertou's gourd at the Stewart, for instance).

The synergy of the two institutions promises some great exhibitions, programming, and research.

Friday, August 9, 2013

I wish that there were more Randy Boswells around. There is far too little historical content in the mainstream Canadian media. Boswell's latest is a piece entitled "Discovery of 19th century document sheds light on the unearthing of astrolabe reportedly used by Samuel de Champlain", which reports on Carleton University professor Bruce Elliott’s discovery of an 1893 journal penned by steamship captain Daniel Cowley. This journal, which has been since May on exhibit at the Pinhey's Point museum just west of Ottawa, sheds a little light on the circumstances in which the astrolabe was discovered. “It was in my desk on the steamer for some months afterwards,” Cowley writes.

Readers should be advised, though, that Boswell and his editors somewhat overstate the extent to which the document tells us something new about whether or not the object ever belonged to Champlain. And the article glosses over the fact that Prof. Elliott has had the journal in his possession for over a decade, if my memory serves me. It seems to me that this places the excitement over a "discovery" in the realm of journalistic hyperbole. Still, this is a good excuse to get the public to think about the looming figure and about an object that has taken on iconic proportions in the historical consciousness of Canadians.

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Engraving accompanying Louis
Hennepin's Nouvelle découverte d'un grand pays... (1697), where Louisiana
is depicted as a land of plenty inhabited
by calumet-wielding Natives.

A new exhibition at the Historic New Orleans Collection, "Pipe Dreams: Louisiana under the French ﻿
Company of the Indies, 1717-1731" covers... well, the title says it all. Showcasing over one hundred items from the period, it tells the story of the Compagnie des Indes's monopoly over the colony during its formative years. It addresses such themes such as Louisiana’s relation to the company’s other trade outposts, which stretched as far as the Indian Ocean; the establishment of a colonial capital at New Orleans; the popularity of tobacco in early modern France and the development of a tobacco culture in Louisiana. The directors of the Compagnie indeed dreamed for a time of creating there a French version of the Chesapeake. The HNOC's exhibition also looks at the diverse Native, European and African population of the colony during the company years, with a special focus on the war which pitted the French and their allies against the Natchez between 1729 and 1731.

﻿﻿One of the gems of the exhibition, which runs until September 15th, is the lavishly illustrated manuscript of Marc-Antoine Caillot's "Relation du voyage de la Louisianne [sic] ou Nouvelle France fait par le Sr. Caillot en l'année 1730". Erin M. Greenwald, the curator responsible for this exhibition at HNOC, rediscovered it herself, edited it, and published it just this spring under the title A Company Man.